Just watched Ringu and its American Remake, The Ring
Apr 10, 2014 16:36:59 GMT -8
Post by weirdraptor on Apr 10, 2014 16:36:59 GMT -8
I probably should have watched the remake first, because dang, is it a disappointment compared to the original.
But I always make a point to see the original version of a film before I look at the remake. Sabrina, The Little Shop Around the Corner, King Kong, The Grudge, and so on and so forth. So I watched Ringu, and I thought it was a pretty solid J-Horror with a fairly original plot (at the time, anyway, before everyone started copying it on BOTH sides of the Pacific Ocean).
The plot is simple, and yet complex, all the same time.
There's a possessed video tape that kills everyone who watches it one week later. Both films begin with one such victim on her last seventh day. The girl's aunt Reika/Rachel, begins to investigate how and why she died after discovering that three friends of her niece all died on the same night at the same time after viewing the tape. Reika/Rachel retraces her niece's footsteps to the mountain retreat where she and her friends watched the tape and watches it, herself. She receives a phone call and a voice over the phone utters, "Seven days". Now under the curse, Reika/Rachel enlists the help of her ex-husband Ryuji/Noah to help her solve the mystery before it's too late. Oh, and her son Yoichi/Aiden watches the tape, too, while unattended, increasing the need to break the curse tenfold. So goes the story.
The remake was okay. It's a well-made film, but they tried too hard to make it more comfortable for Americans to watch, I think. I question the logic of trying to make a horror film more "comofortable" to watch, since they're supposed to scare the piss out of you, but hey, that's just me. The remake does improve on a couple of things, though, like simplifying how the tape came to be and making the victims look more like they were killed by something unnatural (which would have been a great way to offset the normal world if the whole movie wasn't filmed through depressing blue filter that made everything look slightly otherworldly). I found a few parts just odd, though. In the opening scene, we start with one teenage girl (Victim #1) talking about how we lose brain cells to TV made with her friend. I definitely raised a brow at this. The scriptwriters really couldn't think of anything better for them to be talking about?
I also had a hard time buying that our protagonist, Rachel, would be able to single out the tape that kills people when she was glancing at the shelf it was on while at the mountain retreat where her niece stayed. It didn't have a cover and nothing about it screamed "THE TAPE". The original built it up better, so it was more believable when Reika spotted it. Other than a few wonky moments in the writing like that, it was okay. It just wasn't as good as the original. No, I'm not one of those snobs who turns their nose up at every remake and reimagining.
I just prefer the original's subtly.
In the first act of the original, they don't let on that a ghost is the one killing people, per say. They don't really hide it, either. They just let the story tell itself and speak for itself as we follow Reika investigating her niece's murder as she travels through a world of mundane things that suddenly get offset by the supernatural. It's this stark contrast between perfectly normal and DEAR GOD MAKE IT STOP MAKE IT STOP that gives the supernatural elements a bigger wallop. In the remake, we're practically hit over the head that a SPOOKY GHOST is the perp. Hell, they even have animals killing themselves to get away from the ghost and their victims just to show that, well, there's something supernatural going on. And why on earth was it filmed through blue filter? The entire film looked like it needed prozac.
Sadako, the ghostly antagonist of the original, also has a better written backstory than Samara, the villain of the remake. The former was born with psychic powers (and in fact, was implied to be the result of her mother coupling with an otherwordly being in the prequel). A family member tried to exploit her abilties, and that backfired to say the least. Sadako was called a fraud and publically shamed during a demonstration by the press. This resulted in her killing one of the reporters by giving him an aneurism, her mother later committing suicide, and Sadako getting murdered by her "father".
Samara was locked away in a barn by the worst adoptive parents ever and then was killed by them. Oh, great, an abused child becomes the villain. Never seen that one before.[/sarcasm]
The results were the same (them projecting their rage into the tape while it trying to a record a ball game near the spot where their bodies were dumped), but what was the point of changing the backstory?
Sadako also had more presence than Samara. Less is often more and one close up of Sadako's murderous glare through her hair was more terrifying than Samara in all her zombie makeup glory. And... Giving Samara's victim a spacious apartment to run from her in takes from the terror. The original had the victim is a dinky little living space, so when Sadako comes out of the TV, she's a very invasive presence in a very closed space.
The acting in the remake, for the most part, is good, but the acting in the original was more natural.
I mean, the remake had Naomi Watts, so that goes without saying. The kid playing her somewhat neglected son Aiden did a pretty good job as a lonely and jaded kid with mild psychic abilities. The ex-husband was pretty forgettable, though. It felt like they wanted Bill Pullman, but got saddled with a poor man's substitute, instead. The characters also weren't as believable as their counterparts from the original.
Rachel might be gutsier than Reika, but Reika acted like a real person would in this situation. She just wanted to find out why and how her niece died and then jumped into something that was way over her head before realzing it. Reika acted scared, and who wouldn't be. I never felt like Rachel was in any real danger.
Yoichi vs. Aiden: Yoichi had too little screentime to make the impact they wanted. The filmmakers tried to make Aiden too much like Haley Joel Osment from Sixth Sense for him to be interesting. Sorry, guys, but that bit was already played out, and done with a much better child actor. So both films fumbled the son.
The Ex-Husbands, Ryuji vs. Noah: Ryuji was composed and professional, and you knew that though he no longer together with Reika, that he still would help her solve the mystery of her niece's murder. He also possessed the skills necessary to help her. Also, the remake shifted the psychic abilties angle from Ruyuji to the son character.
Noah... How the hell did he land Rachel long enough to procreate with her? Rachel is a driven career woman. Noah a slacker and borderline dead beat. I'm supposed to believe that a go-getter like Rachel would ever have given this guy the time of day?
In the end, Ringu did it first and did it better. The American Remake is still a solid film, deep flaws aside, despite how I rough I was on it during this comparison. It suffered from having a director with no prior experience in horror at the helm (Gore Verbinski) and it relied on too many "safer" horror conventions to pack the punch of the original. I'd still recommend it on the level that it's still a decent horror flick, though.
But I always make a point to see the original version of a film before I look at the remake. Sabrina, The Little Shop Around the Corner, King Kong, The Grudge, and so on and so forth. So I watched Ringu, and I thought it was a pretty solid J-Horror with a fairly original plot (at the time, anyway, before everyone started copying it on BOTH sides of the Pacific Ocean).
The plot is simple, and yet complex, all the same time.
There's a possessed video tape that kills everyone who watches it one week later. Both films begin with one such victim on her last seventh day. The girl's aunt Reika/Rachel, begins to investigate how and why she died after discovering that three friends of her niece all died on the same night at the same time after viewing the tape. Reika/Rachel retraces her niece's footsteps to the mountain retreat where she and her friends watched the tape and watches it, herself. She receives a phone call and a voice over the phone utters, "Seven days". Now under the curse, Reika/Rachel enlists the help of her ex-husband Ryuji/Noah to help her solve the mystery before it's too late. Oh, and her son Yoichi/Aiden watches the tape, too, while unattended, increasing the need to break the curse tenfold. So goes the story.
The remake was okay. It's a well-made film, but they tried too hard to make it more comfortable for Americans to watch, I think. I question the logic of trying to make a horror film more "comofortable" to watch, since they're supposed to scare the piss out of you, but hey, that's just me. The remake does improve on a couple of things, though, like simplifying how the tape came to be and making the victims look more like they were killed by something unnatural (which would have been a great way to offset the normal world if the whole movie wasn't filmed through depressing blue filter that made everything look slightly otherworldly). I found a few parts just odd, though. In the opening scene, we start with one teenage girl (Victim #1) talking about how we lose brain cells to TV made with her friend. I definitely raised a brow at this. The scriptwriters really couldn't think of anything better for them to be talking about?
I also had a hard time buying that our protagonist, Rachel, would be able to single out the tape that kills people when she was glancing at the shelf it was on while at the mountain retreat where her niece stayed. It didn't have a cover and nothing about it screamed "THE TAPE". The original built it up better, so it was more believable when Reika spotted it. Other than a few wonky moments in the writing like that, it was okay. It just wasn't as good as the original. No, I'm not one of those snobs who turns their nose up at every remake and reimagining.
I just prefer the original's subtly.
In the first act of the original, they don't let on that a ghost is the one killing people, per say. They don't really hide it, either. They just let the story tell itself and speak for itself as we follow Reika investigating her niece's murder as she travels through a world of mundane things that suddenly get offset by the supernatural. It's this stark contrast between perfectly normal and DEAR GOD MAKE IT STOP MAKE IT STOP that gives the supernatural elements a bigger wallop. In the remake, we're practically hit over the head that a SPOOKY GHOST is the perp. Hell, they even have animals killing themselves to get away from the ghost and their victims just to show that, well, there's something supernatural going on. And why on earth was it filmed through blue filter? The entire film looked like it needed prozac.
Sadako, the ghostly antagonist of the original, also has a better written backstory than Samara, the villain of the remake. The former was born with psychic powers (and in fact, was implied to be the result of her mother coupling with an otherwordly being in the prequel). A family member tried to exploit her abilties, and that backfired to say the least. Sadako was called a fraud and publically shamed during a demonstration by the press. This resulted in her killing one of the reporters by giving him an aneurism, her mother later committing suicide, and Sadako getting murdered by her "father".
Samara was locked away in a barn by the worst adoptive parents ever and then was killed by them. Oh, great, an abused child becomes the villain. Never seen that one before.[/sarcasm]
The results were the same (them projecting their rage into the tape while it trying to a record a ball game near the spot where their bodies were dumped), but what was the point of changing the backstory?
Sadako also had more presence than Samara. Less is often more and one close up of Sadako's murderous glare through her hair was more terrifying than Samara in all her zombie makeup glory. And... Giving Samara's victim a spacious apartment to run from her in takes from the terror. The original had the victim is a dinky little living space, so when Sadako comes out of the TV, she's a very invasive presence in a very closed space.
The acting in the remake, for the most part, is good, but the acting in the original was more natural.
I mean, the remake had Naomi Watts, so that goes without saying. The kid playing her somewhat neglected son Aiden did a pretty good job as a lonely and jaded kid with mild psychic abilities. The ex-husband was pretty forgettable, though. It felt like they wanted Bill Pullman, but got saddled with a poor man's substitute, instead. The characters also weren't as believable as their counterparts from the original.
Rachel might be gutsier than Reika, but Reika acted like a real person would in this situation. She just wanted to find out why and how her niece died and then jumped into something that was way over her head before realzing it. Reika acted scared, and who wouldn't be. I never felt like Rachel was in any real danger.
Yoichi vs. Aiden: Yoichi had too little screentime to make the impact they wanted. The filmmakers tried to make Aiden too much like Haley Joel Osment from Sixth Sense for him to be interesting. Sorry, guys, but that bit was already played out, and done with a much better child actor. So both films fumbled the son.
The Ex-Husbands, Ryuji vs. Noah: Ryuji was composed and professional, and you knew that though he no longer together with Reika, that he still would help her solve the mystery of her niece's murder. He also possessed the skills necessary to help her. Also, the remake shifted the psychic abilties angle from Ruyuji to the son character.
Noah... How the hell did he land Rachel long enough to procreate with her? Rachel is a driven career woman. Noah a slacker and borderline dead beat. I'm supposed to believe that a go-getter like Rachel would ever have given this guy the time of day?
In the end, Ringu did it first and did it better. The American Remake is still a solid film, deep flaws aside, despite how I rough I was on it during this comparison. It suffered from having a director with no prior experience in horror at the helm (Gore Verbinski) and it relied on too many "safer" horror conventions to pack the punch of the original. I'd still recommend it on the level that it's still a decent horror flick, though.